Though I’m most concerned with your web business safety from the commercial sense, I’m also concerned that you do not wreck your web business by losing important data.
In some senses, this is a technical issue that belongs on shrewdies.net. However, the commercial implications are so big, and the technical requirements so simple, that this remains a management issue.
Safety Of Office 2.0
I’m sorry to have lost the link to the site that inspired me to think “Office 2.0.” That site, long before Google Docs became the hot productivity tool that it is today, extolled and promoted several web based office services.
This is not really the time to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of Office 2.0 services except to state the obvious conclusions:
- Using online applications to manipulate and store your information saves you time backing up data.
- There will always be some data that you need to store locally. In my case, mainly images and PDF files that I am editing and some financial and business information that is too complex for Google Spreadsheets.
Web Business Data Safety
So we all have vital web business data on our hard drives, but is it safe? The reliability of modern hardware can make us lose sight of the disaster that will happen if the computer crashes or gets stolen. Even with local backups, it can be time consuming to restore data from local backups.
My best solution is to use an online backup service. I prefer Dropbox because it is so easy to use. I get immediate benefit from:
- Automatic backup of my data to a secure remote server.
- Instant access to the backup data from any Internet connection.
So wherever I am in the world, if I can get an Internet connection, I can retrieve a copy of all the data on my office computer.
And it’s free! But more about that in a minute, after I’ve explained the final benefit.
Web Business Data Sharing
One exceptionally useful feature of Dropbox is the public folder feature. This means that you can easily share large files with anyone you chose. More importantly, your customers and visitors have an easy way to share their large files with you.
No more pain from large email attachments blocking your email server, or the hassle of setting up FTP accounts.
Your Web Business Safety
I recommend that you signup for Dropbox right now. It is completely free for 2Gb data. If you need more than this, you can increase the free amount up to 8Gb by referring other users, or you can buy additional storage. Each time you refer a user, you both get an extra 250Mb, so if you use my link to join, you start with 2.25Gb.
As you can see, I’m hoping that you will signup through my link to boost my free quota, but you do not need to. I recommend it because it is good, so if you want to sign up without the affiliate link, go direct to dropbox.com. 2Gb should be enough for most users.
Please note that, if you do signup, I will be notified of your email address. I promise, as usual, never to share this with anyone. However, there will come a time when I no longer need additional referrals, so I will contact you to see if you want my referral link changing to you so that you get the additional free storage.